The expenses incurred in connection with a long distance or toll-type telephone call are traditionally charged to the owner of the telephone set in the case of private telephone sets, or otherwise to the business entity associated with the telephone. The charge-back of the expenses for completing such toll-type telephone calls has been handled with a certain degree of administrative efficiency thus far, in that the individuals and businesses are well defined entities for billing purposes. Because of the increased usage and need for long distance communications, the additional burden imposed on the telephone operating companies has necessitated the recovery of the costs incurred in connection with operator services. For example, a flat rate charge is now imposed on the user for employing an operator to complete a long distance call, or to use long distance information services.
In order to further promote long distance calling, and the billing thereof, conventional credit cards or telephone company issued cards are available for billing the call thereto. While some long distance telephone calls can be completed and billed without operator assistance, such as by keying in the pertinent telephone and credit card numbers, many toll calls yet require operator assistance.
The noted advancements in the telecommunications industry, have, in certain instances, interfered with the flexibility and completion of toll-type telephone calls. For example, many situations exist in which operator-assisted long distance telephone calls are not allowed to be completed, such as by patrons of an establishment, even though the calling party has the appropriate credit card. In this situation, the owner of the establishment on whose premises the telephone may be installed derives no revenue from the long distance call, and indeed, incurs an expense for the operator assistance. This expense is generally billed to the owner of the telephone set.
As a result of the increased long distance telephone business, operator services are now provided by companies other than the local or nationally known telephone companies. Network access to such operator services is also customarily provided through public or private carrier systems so that long distance telephone calls can be completed with the assistance of such operator services. Toll-type telephone calls made through the use of the noted operator services are routinely billed to users or other business entities who are assigned an identity or billing code.
In order to further facilitate the ease with which long distance telephone calls are made, and to promote the generation of revenues therefrom, a need exists for a technique to automatically identify the telephone set itself, and thus the proprietor thereof so that the operator service organization can appropriate the billing charges so that the owner of the telephone set can recover all costs, as well as receive a profit from the use of the telephone set. This would be especially advantageous in hotels, hospitals, dormitories and other similar institutions where the users of the telephone are fairly well identifiable. By assigning specially programmed telephones to the patrons of such institutions, and on the automatic transmission of such information to the operator services, such services can allocate the billing charges efficiently and accurately, without loss of revenue to the institution.